Eidos Montreal working on Thief 4?

[funcroc]

http://www.eidosmontreal.com/en/index.html

 

NEWS

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

 

Eidos-Montr

[Arkan]

I'd buy it.

[Pop]

Considering how small the teams are and how long their planned development period is for DE3 we might as well just sit and wait until 2011.

[Musopticon?]

********.

 

Sorry, it's late. I'm just not entirely thrilled with the idea of having to again cringe over every other "design decision" that devs deem important enough to implement in place of actually fleshing out gameplay, fret over what kind of story bastardization they can cook up and wonder when the hell is the series going to rest.

 

I mean, there must be other ways to make a successful stealth game. Did anyone even buy Thief 3? Wouldn't it be better to rip off something commercially successful, such as Assassin's Creed?

 

Well, whatever. I can live with it as long as there's at least a semblance of the previous designers present. And no Harvey Smith.

 

Edit: Who am I kidding...Thief 4 finally, bitches.

Edited April 5, 2008 by Musopticon?

[Tigranes]

Did anyone even buy Thief 3?

 

I liked Thief 3. I played Thief 2 and 3; haven't got around to 1 yet because I can't find it in the local market. But I liked 3 almost as much as 2. There are long-time sequels that bring their ancestors to utter disrepute, but I always found it difficult to see why Thief 3 belongs in that ignomious category; it was a good, fun game and kept the general 'feel' of the Thief series alive. (I guess the one point was story, but all the stories were boring anyway.)

 

I'd go buy Thief 4 in an instant, it's good news.

[Tel Aviv]

I reckon The Dark Project best for plot, it's like steampunk noir or something.

 

I'm wondering if, given Deadly Shadows ending, we'll have a shiny new protagonist for this one.

Edited April 5, 2008 by Tel Aviv

[Slowtrain]

We need Thief 4 why exactly? Oh wait, I know because we need more of the exact same gameplay all over again! Whee.

 

If they put in climbing and or implement rope arrows again, then OK, otherwise, poop. A thief game without climbing is like a day withut sunshine. ALso, more undead and fire arrows. And level scaling. And maybe some miniguns. Arrow miniguns and probably ninjas.

[Tigranes]

We need Thief 4 why exactly? Oh wait, I know because we need more of the exact same gameplay all over again! Whee.

 

Yeah, well.. I still can't get enough of Thief, and I want more. I mean, by that logic, Icewind Dale 2 or the last six Mario games were all quite redundant.

 

I think you might be implying that Thief 3 was perhaps too much of the same. I guess I see what you mean. There is a lot of scope for improvement in terms of climbing and acrobatics.

 

I hated the undead and whatnot though. The levels I most enjoyed were town levels, and then the hammerites/metalist levels; 'human' buildings with human enemies. I don't know. I really see Garrett as a 'city thief', not infiltrating weird magical places with pseudo-primitive whatnots. But I suppose they are really needed to provide a variation.

[Hell Kitty]

We need Thief 4 why exactly?

 

The same reason we need any other video game I suppose.

 

I hated the undead and whatnot though. The levels I most enjoyed were town levels, and then the hammerites/metalist levels; 'human' buildings with human enemies. I don't know. I really see Garrett as a 'city thief', not infiltrating weird magical places with pseudo-primitive whatnots.

 

I agree with this. My favourite levels are the ones that take place in urban locations.

 

Anyway, I remember an interview with some Eidos dude from ages ago and he said something about going modern with the Thief series rather than medieval. I believe Ion Storm was planning Thief 4 as a modern day remake of The Dark Project.

[Humodour]

Interesting. I have a copy of Thief 2 lying around but haven't got round to playing it.

 

Should I? Is it sort of timeless like SS2?

[Hell Kitty]

Thief 2 is my favourite. I'm pretty sure not playing it is one of the seven deadly sins.

[Tigranes]

I picked it up a couple of years ago for $5 and it's great. It's not that dated IMO, and is a nice game. Go play Krez, now.

[mkreku]

Why did they even add undead to the Thief games? They were almost as bad as the mega monkeys in Far Cry..

[Humodour]

Done! Well, when I get time.

[HYFLUX]

Did anyone even buy Thief 3?

 

You did, apparently and so did others and even liked TDS. Perhaps you have some record about TDS sales figures? 'coz hey, just coz you didnt like the game, assuming it got flopped is retarded, no? Also had it been a commercial failure, wound have not encouraged EIDOS to make Thief 4.

 

Wouldn't it be better to rip off something commercially successful, such as Assassin's Creed?

 

And you are suddenly OK with its console oriented design and dumbed-down gameplay?!?! and TDS gets criticized for that! Such double standards..

 

But that aside, this is great news. Looking forward to it...[assuming this is even true!]

Edited April 5, 2008 by HYFLUX

[Musopticon?]

Did anyone even buy Thief 3?

 

You did, apparently and so did others and even liked TDS. Perhaps you have some record about TDS sales figures? 'coz hey, just coz you didnt like the game, assuming it got flopped is retarded, no? Also had it been a commercial failure, wound have not encouraged EIDOS to make Thief 4.

 

Wouldn't it be better to rip off something commercially successful, such as Assassin's Creed?

 

And you are suddenly OK with its console oriented design and dumbed-down gameplay?!?! and TDS gets criticized for that! Such double standards..

Calm down, I loved Thief 3. Keeper Compound is one of my favorite levels(along with Cradle) and I thought the plot was superb. Walking with Lauryl through the city remains as the single most atmospheric and sad moment in stealth games.

 

I'm only saying that I had got the idea that while Splinter Cells were selling like hotcakes, Deadly Shadows sales weren't that hot.

 

And thinking they'll not mimic other successful stealth games is kind of inane. Think it like this, this game is going to be designed from the ground up as a moneymaker for Eidos. Last fiscal showed them to be knee-deep in...well, not dough at least and so they will resurrect old franchises to cash on them. Of course they are going to implement features that were popular in recent stealth games, that's just sensible in terms of selling the game.

 

Furthermore, I'll have you know that I don't sign "consolitism" as the reason why Deadly Shadows was flawed, but instead the egos of the design team. In a way, it was taking the hit from Invisible War, which was streamlined to ****, not streamlined because it was multiplatform. I've played complex console games, hell, I'm practically a console gamer considering how much little time I actually spend gaming on this computer and I don't like the pc-elitism that Thief community seems to love.

[Slowtrain]

How many copies did Thief 3 sell anyway? I bought a copy, Hell Kitty bought a copy so that's 2 at least. Add in a couple others aroudn the world and Thief 3 sold what 5 or 6 copies? If publishers are so inetrested in releasing sequels to poor selling games why not do XCOM or Wasteland or Terra Nova or Anachronox or some other title that has gameplay that we don't see every day. Take a stand! Blaze a trail! Be bold!

 

DOn't get e wrong Thief 1 and Thief 2 were 2 of my most favorite games. Thief 3 was OK, but the lack of joy in that game offered no compelling reason why we need a number 4. Of course we can get cool next gen graphics that consume 4/5s of the development budget and offer 0 to the gameplay. I mean that is what developers do now right?

[Humodour]

People claim Planescape: Torment sold poorly, as well, yet no sales figures or developer comments ever reflected that.

 

I'll bet Thief 3 sold just fine.

[Musopticon?]

I haven't seen numbers myself, I had got the idea that it wasn't a huge seller, just ok.

 

Which would be a reason enough for Eidos to kick the franchise into action again, heh.

 

 

Now that we are into this, does anyone actually have statistics or similar of Thief 3 sales? Some king of lump figure at least?

Edited April 5, 2008 by Musopticon?

[Morgoth]

I totally have no interest in a butchered Tomb Raider clone, really. Thief was never meant to have mass appeal, but Eidos Montreal is bound to make million sellers in order to stay alive, but I doubt a Thief1/2 style game will be that million seller.

[Pop]

it was taking the hit from Invisible War, which was streamlined to ****, not streamlined because it was multiplatform.

Actually, wasn't the reason IW felt so cramped was because the engine had to be constrained to Original Xbox specs? It doesn't account for any of the other terrible design, but the multiplatform aspect had an effect. Whereas these days, in most respects the differencs between a multiplatform and PC-exclusive title are control scheme and an extra helping of ****-tugging for graphics whores.

 

Take a stand! Blaze a trail! Be bold!

Wouldn't it be nice if game studios aspired to the same fate as United Artists Pictures.

[Moatilliatta]

it was taking the hit from Invisible War, which was streamlined to ****, not streamlined because it was multiplatform.

Actually, wasn't the reason IW felt so cramped was because the engine had to be constrained to Original Xbox specs?

This is what I remember from it as well. Still doesn't mean that its inferiority can be accounted for by the console argument though.

[Slowtrain]

IIRC neither Thief3 nor DX:IW sold well. IW was generally not very well regarded of course, by anybody, so its low sales are pretty much expected. Thief 3 was generally applauded by most but also did not sell very well. Both games were pc/console releases.

 

I'm not opposed to another Thief game per se but:

 

1) If you are going to make a sequel to a poorly performing game, pick one that hasn't already been done three times. Brand recognition obviously ain't helping here if none of the three have sold very well.

 

2) By the fourth iteration gameplay starts to get tired. Next gen graphics alone aren't going to be a compelling enough reason for me to pick up a fourth thief game. Maybe if the things that were cut in Thief 3, namely water, mantling, and rope arrows were put back in, I would be more interested. And climbing would be nice. I don't know why climbing is so rarely included in games these days. It must be hard to implement or something. I remember back in Daggerfall scaling massive dungeon vaults and climbing over city walls in the dead of night. If you're playign a Thief, clmibing is almost a neccessity from a gameplay point of view.

[Tel Aviv]

Not very well regarded by anybody? DX:IW was just as "generally applauded" as Deadly Shadows.

[Pop]

I don't think the past performance of the games have anything to do with it. The devs have the IP, and presumably they are interested in it.